Inclusion of 4 Bengal BJP MPs in union govt seen as part of bigger 2024 plan

Induction of four Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Lok Sabha members from West Bengal as union ministers of state on Wednesday evening-- hours after two junior ministers from the state resigned-- was seen in political circles as a ‘reward’ for regions where the saffron camp has gained dividends in the Bengal assembly polls.

BJP leaders, such as Bengal unit president Dilip Ghosh, said John Barla from Alipurduar, Nisith Pramanik from Cooch Behar, Shantanu Thakur from Bongaon and Dr Subhas Sarkar from Bankura were rewarded for their “performance” and the move was part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constant efforts to give “opportunity” to everybody.

Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader and Industry minister Partha Chatterjee said Barla was indeed rewarded but for raising the demand for a state or Union territory comprising the north Bengal districts. “This shows that the Centre encourages those who want to divide people and split states,” he said.

After Barla, a tribal leader, raised the demand a fortnight ago, several Gorkha groups from the Darjeeling hills as well as the Dalit Rajbanshis in the plains of north Bengal have started talking about their age-old demands for statehood. Armed movements carried out by some of these outfits claimed numerous lives in the past, posing a problem for Marxist chief ministers Jyoti Basu and Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and their successor Mamata Banerjee.

The BJP has officially maintained that Barla has expressed his personal opinion and the party has nothing to do with it.

For the record, north Bengal, which comprises eight districts, is where the saffron camp outdid the ruling party in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls as well as in the recent assembly election. Two TMC ministers were defeated in the region in the assembly polls. Pramanik defeated a former minister but resigned from the assembly to retain his Lok Sabha constituency. Barla did not contest the assembly polls.

All the four MPs who got promoted on Wednesday represent regions and communities that backed the BJP in the last two elections.

In the assembly polls, the TMC won by securing 213 of the 294 seats against the BJP’s 77 seats. The results showed that TMC managed to regain the trust of many Hindu, tribal and Dalit voters who backed the saffron camp in 2019 in the south Bengal region which comprises 240 assembly segments.

In north Bengal, on the other hand, BJP candidates stood their ground at 30 of the region’s 54 assembly segments where identity politics played a key role. Even in south Bengal, the BJP bagged sizeable votes in constituencies located close to the Indo-Bangladesh border where Hindus migrated from East Pakistan either after 1947 or the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War.

The BJP’s success in 2019 was credited largely to its ability to reach out to upper caste Hindus, tribal people and Hindu Dalit or Namasudra voters. To secure the votes of citizens representing various castes, sub-castes, religions and linguistic groups in assembly polls, the TMC and BJP banked on strategic campaigns.

Dr Sarkar, a physician, represents a region with sizeable backward caste and tribal population where the BJP made maximum inroad in 2019.

The state’s scheduled tribe (ST) population stood at 5.29 million during the 2011 census, accounting for about 5.8% of the whole population. Despite the welfare schemes launched by Mamata Banerjee, the BJP won the Bankura and Bishnupur Lok Sabha seats as well as the Midnapore, Jhargram and Purulia seats.

In the assembly polls, the BJP won seven of the 12 seats in Bankura district. The competition was so close that in the Bankura assembly seat the BJP defeated TMC’s Sayantika Banerjee, a young actor, by less than one per cent votes.

“Seeing Dr Sarkar as a union minister will elevate the morale of local voters. The same applies to the other MPs. This will help the BJP consolidate its position before the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Modi and Amit Shah have specific plans for these regions,” a senior state BJP leader said on condition of anonymity.

Caste politics also became an important factor in large parts of North 24 Parganas and Nadia districts in south Bengal where the Hindu Dalit community has a sizeable presence. In 2019, BJP wrested the Ranaghat and Bongaon Lok Sabha seats in Nadia and North 24 Parganas respectively, largely because of the support from this community.

To attract Dalit voters, the saffron camp promised to enforce the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in Bengal so that the Matua community, which is a part of the larger Namasudra community and who came from Bangladesh as refugees, could be granted citizenship.

Shantanu Thakur is the head of the Matua community. On March 27, when Bengal voted for the first phase of assembly elections, the chief minister accused Modi of violating the model code of conduct by trying to “woo” the Matua community during his Bangladesh visit on that day. The PM paid a visit to Thakurbari, which is the most sacred pilgrimage site for the Matuas across the world. Modi was accompanied by Thakur who has demanded immediate implementation of CAA.

Thakur is the grandson of Binapani Devi, the Matua community’s head who died in 2019, a month after Modi’s visit to the Matua headquarters at Thakurnagar in North 24 Parganas district.

CAA promises citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Parsis, Buddhists and Jains coming from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. The TMC is opposed to it.

Union ministers Babul Supriyo, the MP from Asanol in West Burdwan, and Debasree Chaudhuri from Raigunj in north Bengal resigned from the government on Wednesday. While Chaudhuri did not react in public, Supriyo, who unsuccessfully contested the Tollygunge assembly seat in Kolkata, did not hide his feelings.

“Yes, I have resigned from the Council Of Ministers. As I had framed it earlier, “Asked to resign” may not be the right way to put it. I thank Hon’ble Prime Minister @narendramodi for giving me the privilege to serve my country as a Member of his Council of Ministers..” Supriyo tweeted with a smiley.

“I am extremely happy that I go today without a spot of corruption on me, having served my constituency with all my might & having enjoyed their confidence when Asansol voted me back as their MP once again, with triple the Margin in 2019,” he said in a second tweet.